Solved: Communication Error. Epson Adjustment Program

[losttribe]

Hi Dana,

Many thanks. Although the cost will be difficult at the moment due to some recent expenses all happening at once I think I’m leaning toward getting fresh inks ordered ASAP as I really can’t stand not making prints any longer. I will just have to put the wasted ink down to experience and move on. Lesson learned, big time! I’ll look forward eagerly to news from Wells. I just didn’t want to place an order this week and then see an announcement from Jon of piezo inks being available in the EU right after. Mind you maybe shipping from there is just as pricey

in the meantime I will check the documentation for printing calibration mode prints from the print tool rather than from Photoshop.

Regards,
Neil

[hlockwood]

@Dana: From the way Neil is getting to K7 from K3, he will have to undergo 2 purges. First, purge the OEM ink with flush fluid, then purge the flush fluid with K7 inks. Is this really necessary? (I’m in nearly the same position as Neil: just starting up an R3000, with MacBookPro running Mountain Lion, just for the ink changeover. Then iMac running Snow Leopard when I finally get through loading the K7 inks.)

I interpret the purge instructions from IJM to purge the OEM inks directly, using the Service Adjustment Program, with the K7 inks. While flush liquid may be cheaper than ink, a second set of refillable carts is required, otherwise the flush carts will have to be cleaned thoroughly of flush fluid before introducing the K7 inks. Is it necessary to go through the 2-step process that Neil has begun? (And BTW Neil, where are you in the process now?)

Boot Camp is supplied free on all current Macs. The path I’ve taken is to load Windows 7 via Boot Camp on my MBP so that I can run the purge program without using half a tree worth of paper and exercising the printer unnecessarily. I will now order the SAP for the next step - with fingers crossed.

(As an aside, I could say some choice words about my first real experience with Windows, but that would only open the old argument about Mac vs Windows. And that has been beaten to death.)

Harry

[losttribe]

Hi Harry

Im just trying to decide between Warm neutral and carbon before ordering inks and running them into the lines and then hopefully enjoy printing again.

I decided on getting the extra carts and filling with flush as I wanted to option of putting the printer into storage mode occasionally. After leaving a 3800 unused for too long and not printing enough when printing I am now only too happy to push ink or flush through a printer when not actively printing. All things considered it’s far cheaper and less grief.

As I said to Dana I think the purge by printing would go much better if I do one channel at a time printing whole pages of colour rather than the purge sheet containing colour bars for all channels.

if I could get the adjustment program to do something other than shout ‘error’ then I would use that but I also think there is some comfort in knowing that I am printing ink through the nozzles in the way it is designed to operate rather than being pulled through by the pump.

I cant ant remember what the recommendation was before I started in regard to using piezo flush then new ink but perhaps Dana can confirm if one method is preferable and why. In addition to wanting to have a set of flush carts on hand for storage I think I was also trying to delay ordering new inks for a little while until I could afford them. And I didn’t want to buy more K3 carts just to keep the printer running so I decided I better get the flush in there before the K3 pigment settled in the lines.

I was was very interested to here you are running windows via boot camp. I think that is something I may try whilst I wait for inks. My reasoning is it means any communication glitches are nothing to do with Parallels. I figure that gives me way less variables if I continue to get problems. Part of the issue with me is I’ve not had to set up and administer a windows machine since 2006 when I got my first mac and now here I am trying to set it up whilst it is running on a Parallels virtual machine. I know from experience that I could chase my tail for days between Parallels and 2Manuals support and it might be time down the drain. If you could share your experience of using the adjustment programme from windows installed as a separate boot partition that would be great. I am using windows XP though rather than Win 7.

If I can answer any questions or help in any way let me know.

Regards,
Neil

[DanaC]

Thanks for your input Harry and Neil. Let me clarify the flushing questions you brought up.

As per the Piezography ink installation information we have available in many refillable cartridge instructions and other Piezography support pages, flushing color inks with PiezoFlush before installing Piezography inks isn’t absolutely necessary- but highly recommended. Pro model printers with internal ink lines and dampers can often have color ink particle build up in the dampers, which leaches out slowly as ink passes thru. The amount of particle build up depends on the age and use history of the printer- lack of shaking cartridges and not using the printer on a regular basis can actually speed up particle build up, and it’s less of an issue with a brand new printer that has only been used with color inks for a short time.
Even if the printer is new and there’s not much particle build up in the dampers, you will still need to do an Initial Fill or 3-4 Power Clean Cycles (depending on the printer model and available cleaning cycles) to purge color ink and get Piezography ink from carts to the print head, then you still may have some slight color staining (yellow is always the worst for some reason- which will show up in the highlights), and have to print some purge pages or do a few more cleaning cycles to get rid of the color staining. If there is a lot of color pigment build up in the dampers, it can slowly leach out- so after doing cleaning cycles, it may look good one day, then more color leaches out while the printer sits unused, and the next print session shows color staining again, resulting in wasted prints/ink/paper, and having to do more cleaning cycles, with the uncertainty of when the color tint will be gone for good.

To help avoid color staining and wasting valuable ink/paper/prints/time, we recommend using a second set of carts filled with PiezoFlush solution to flush color ink from the internal ink system. PiezoFlush is specially formulated to be strong at breaking up particle build up and clogs, but is gentle enough to use as long term storage fluid for when the printer won’t be used for a period of time, to prevent settling pigment and drying ink which can cause clogging.
PiezoFlush is stronger/quicker and less expensive to use for flushing color ink from your Pro model printer than Piezography ink, and as Neil pointed out- the flush carts are helpful to use again in the future if you need to go away or will not use the printer for a while. PiezoFlush is the best solution to safely store your printer, and allows you to quickly reinstall inks and resume printing when you’re ready (without dealing with frustrating and often expensive issues related to settled pigment and drying ink in the pint head- such as incorrect output density, particle build up in the lines and dampers, and clogged print head channels). Considering the cost of the equipment and materials (and how valuable your time is), we think it’s best to keep printers in top working condition and advise people to follow our recommended workflows to produce optimal and consistent print quality, as well as get the longest life and best results from their printer.

My understanding is that it is best to do an Initial Fill and suck inks thru the head/dampers/lines than print large volumes of ink from each channel to flush/charge ink, because printing uses the Piezo crystals to push, which have a limited life of the number of ink droplets printed, and cleaning/initial fill cycles suck ink thru using the pump. Saying that, I have used the printing method in the past to change 1-2 individual ink channels in our 7880/9880s’ to avoid wasting ink in the other lines, and had no problems at all (though don’t know the long term effects yet), but whenever changing an entire set of carts, flushing a printer or changing the Piezography ink tone in any of our pro model printers, I always do an initial fill cycle (which can conveniently be done right from the printer’s control panel with our 7880/9880s’).
Another way to avoid color staining and flushing between color/Piezography inks would be to install the Piezography inks and do an initial fill cycle, then install fresh dampers to remove the color particle build up, and a few more regular cleaning cycles should be printing pure Piezography ink.

Neil- Wells told me that our European dealer will likely not have Piezography inks available until the beginning of 2014, so if you want to get fresh inks before then, you will want to order directly from us.
As soon as I hear back from Roy regarding workflows for printing thru Calibration Mode with QTR Print Tool and various Mac OSs’, I will update the instructions on our site. As I haven’t yet used 10.8, I’m not positive- but expect you’d open the inkseparation or a QTR flush image with either Adobe RGB or Untagged RGB embedded profile and NO color management thru the Print Tool, then select Calibration mode as normal in the QuadTone RIP window.

I am interested to hear more about your experience with Boot Camp, as I haven’t yet tried it out.
Please share your experiences, let me know if you have questions, or there’s anything else I can help you with.

Best regards~ Dana

[hlockwood]

Thanks for the response, Dana. I know about using flush carts for storing a printer, as I did just that this past summer. Based on your current recommendation, I guess I’ll now order a second set of refill carts for the changeover from K3, in order to get the R3000 up and running with K7 inks. I’m still waiting to receive the carts I already have on order with IJM.

I can’t say much yet about Boot Camp except that I now have Windows 7 on my laptop, the machine I’ll use to flush the R3000 with the Service Adjustment Program. Since I’ve never used Windows in the past, I’m proceeding slowly and cautiously. I need a Windows guru looking over my shoulder to keep me from screwing up. Guess I’ll pick up a copy of Windows for Dummies.

Harry

[DanaC]

Sounds good Harry. Keep me posted, and let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana

[hlockwood]

[QUOTE=Dana-IJM;2264]Sounds good Harry. Keep me posted, and let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana :)[/QUOTE]

Dana & Neil:

Error Code Solved! Early results.

I gave up on the inconvenience of BootCamp and bought Parallels which I used to load Windows on my MacBookPro. When I loaded the 2Manuals software, I was able to do a nozzle check and head clean, but I wasn’t quite ready for an ink charge. To that end I removed back and end panels to install a waste-ink bottle, and then went back to the Adjustment Program to be certain all was well after reassembly. When I tried to do a nozzle check, a head clean or access the ink charge step, I got the dreaded error message Error Code: 20000010. Dead in the water. However, this morning I tried shutting down the printer and the MBP, then restarting. I then opened the Adjustment Program and tried (fingers crossed) a nozzle check - no error code: I opened the ink charge program - no error code!

After I top up the flush carts today, I’ll go ahead with the ink charge and report back here.

Harry

[hlockwood]

[QUOTE=hlockwood;2375]Dana & Neil:

Error Code Solved! Early results.

I gave up on the inconvenience of BootCamp and bought Parallels which I used to load Windows on my MacBookPro. When I loaded the 2Manuals software, I was able to do a nozzle check and head clean, but I wasn’t quite ready for an ink charge. To that end I removed back and end panels to install a waste-ink bottle, and then went back to the Adjustment Program to be certain all was well after reassembly. When I tried to do a nozzle check, a head clean or access the ink charge step, I got the dreaded error message Error Code: 20000010. Dead in the water. However, this morning I tried shutting down the printer and the MBP, then restarting. I then opened the Adjustment Program and tried (fingers crossed) a nozzle check - no error code: I opened the ink charge program - no error code!

After I top up the flush carts today, I’ll go ahead with the ink charge and report back here.

Harry[/QUOTE]

The ink charge was successful, as shown by a nozzle check; all channels show flush fluid pink, except that the yellow channel is yellowish pink. The total amount of flush fluid used was about 80 ml. I’ll perform a second ink charge to rid the yellow channel of yellow residue before going on to loading the K7 inks.

I think I’ll have to sell a couple of prints to cover the cost of all the ink that is going down the drain.

Harry

[losttribe]

Hi Harry,

Thanks for your posts regarding the ink charging. I’ve been ignoring the printer for the last little while as I just got too cheesed off with how much time I was spending or rather ‘throwing away’ faffing around with the darned thing.

I wasn’t getting any actual work done. The killer is that although I have a calibrated reference display now, i’m of the opinion that making prints needs to be part of the feedback for developing an image. I really want to make prints as I develop images rather than trying to finish an image without taking into account the influence of the print. And of course I can’t do that until I get this darned thing working.

I tried installing windows xp with boot camp assistant on my old iMac. That was a disaster. The boot camp assistant starts off and lets me select a partition size for the windows partition and then it all looks like it is working fine. I put in the windows xp install disk and the process looks like it is working fine. The windows installer starts formatting the partition and installing windows. However it just gets to a point where the computer tries to boot to windows but I then get a message saying there is no bootable system disk. Here’s the kicker… When I try to get back to Mac OS I find that the attempted install of Windows has wiped out Mac OS, so then I have to install Mac OS (which of course goes without a hitch ;-)…)

I will try your suggestion regarding restarting things but I’ve already done that.

I sort of think that the issue I have is that although I have windows running in Parallels I don’t actually have the printer correctly ‘installed’ under windows with the correct driver. If I try to install the correct driver downloaded from the Epson site I get errors saying that basically the printer and the driver do not match. Only one of my friends uses a PC, the others all use Macs and the one friend that actually does use a PC that I could borrow is no help as hers is out of action and in need of repair.

I might just purge one channel at a time by printing plain paper sheets but I would rather not.

Any thoughts anyone has on this whole sorry saga would be appreciated, perhaps any suggestions about setting up Windows and installing a printer under Windows?

Many thanks again,
Neil.

[hlockwood]

[QUOTE=hlockwood;2376]The ink charge was successful, as shown by a nozzle check; all channels show flush fluid pink, except that the yellow channel is yellowish pink. The total amount of flush fluid used was about 80 ml. I’ll perform a second ink charge to rid the yellow channel of yellow residue before going on to loading the K7 inks.

I think I’ll have to sell a couple of prints to cover the cost of all the ink that is going down the drain.

Harry[/QUOTE]

{@Neil: I’ll respond to your post after I bring my story to a (successful) close here.}

I performed a second ink charge plus a head clean and all channels were nicely pink from the flush fluid.

After loading up a second set of refillable carts with K7 inks I started on the final plunge using the 2Manuals software. I added a nozzle clean after the K7 inks were installed. To test the tonality of the K7 inks, I ran Jon Cone’s proof-of-piezography file. The lightest tones had a barely visible remnant of the pink flush fluid, so I printed a dozen sheets of the “yellow” ink separation file. That did it; the problem seems to have been with Shade 7. I’m back in business with K7 printing and with a new printer. I’m happy (but quite a bit poorer.)

Harry

[hlockwood]

Neil,

Forget Bootcamp; it’s too much trouble switching back and forth, restarting each time. And that partition step is fraught with difficulty, as we both learned.

The Epson driver has to be installed while you’re running Windows; I made the same mistake you did. However, when I reinstalled from the Epson disk while in Windows, the problem went away. Why are you downloading the Epson driver; don’t you have the install disc? It sounds like this is one potential source of your problem.

Don’t try printing your way out of the problem with purge sheets either. I embarked on that route briefly and envisioned myself buried in paper up to my ears. Remember, you’ll have to go through this process every time there is a need for an new ink charge. This problem can be solved in a more elegant manner.

I suspect I can help you if we interact more directly than is possible in this forum. My email address is hflockwood AT verizon dot net. Contact me, and we can set up a telephone link. (What part of the world do you inhabit?)

Harry

[DanaC]

Hi Harry~

I’m glad to hear you’ve successfully flushed your printer and installed Piezography inks, now for the fun part: PRINTING!

Yes, to use the Adjustment Program, the regular print driver must be installed first in order for the computer and printer to communicate, so if using Windows thru Parallels on a Mac, the print driver must be installed on the Windows side to communicate with the printer and use the AP. I’m sure the support team at 2manuals could have quickly helped you figure this out and avoided frustration, wasted time and paper you experienced while trying to figure it out yourself, so please don’t shy away from help- support teams are trained to know about and help you use their products (though I don’t support products other than our own, I always try to help in any way I can).

Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards and happy printing~

[hlockwood]

[QUOTE=Dana-IJM;2383]Hi Harry~

I’m glad to hear you’ve successfully flushed your printer and installed Piezography inks, now for the fun part: PRINTING!

Yes, to use the Adjustment Program, the regular print driver must be installed first in order for the computer and printer to communicate, so if using Windows thru Parallels on a Mac, the print driver must be installed on the Windows side to communicate with the printer and use the AP. I’m sure the support team at 2manuals could have quickly helped you figure this out and avoided frustration, wasted time and paper you experienced while trying to figure it out yourself, so please don’t shy away from help- support teams are trained to know about and help you use their products (though I don’t support products other than our own, I always try to help in any way I can).

Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards and happy printing~[/QUOTE]

Dana,
You’re always very helpful. But, “the support team at 2Manuals”?? No response yet to 3 attempts to get their attention about the error code. Same problem Neil had.

Anyway, that’s history. My first printing exercise will be to compare the two available profiles for Canson RagPhoto on the R3000. One good comparison tool is the proof of piezography test sheet; it’s unforgiving.

Harry

[DanaC]

Yikes, I am very sorry to hear 2manuals isn’t providing good support. As we direct a lot of people their way, I will contact them myself to complain about their unacceptable support, and can search online to see if I can find a better place to direct people to.
It’s not only about having the product, but supporting the product, and if one is lacking, the customer will look elsewhere to get what they need (though I have occasionally looked elsewhere, and haven’t yet found a more complete listing of adjustment programs and repair manuals, so sometimes you need to work with a company to get the product you need, and unfortunately be on your own (or work with a community support forum) to figure it out).

So, how do your prints look so far? Yes, the Proof of Piezography print is a great test image, though I often just print the 21 step strip to check output accuracy by measuring and plotting the linearization before printing proofs or final images.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana

[DanaC]

So, I wrote to 2manuals support yesterday afternoon, and received a response this morning:
[I]
Hello!
Thank you for contacting 2Manuals.com.
I apologize for any inconvenience caused by my delayed response and I’ll be happy to assist you.

1. No one request, no one email from our customers we leave without reply. That is 100%.
   Why some customers doesnt receive our emails??? There are a lot of web services which can block emails detecting them like spam. They can post question at our forum.

2. About R3000 AP - this is most NOT PROBLEM model. We have no problems with it AP. Can you give me their questions?

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Kind regards, John
www.2manuals.com[/I]

I think this is good and quick customer support, so am curious if their replies were directed to your spam folder as he suggested, or what happened…? English is apparently not his primary language, but I’m sure he’s very knowledgeable/helpful, so please be sure to contact 2Manuals for help you may need in the future with the AP or manuals you get from them.

All the best~ Dana

[hlockwood]

Thanks for the follow up, Dana. Not in the spam folder.

Here are the responses:

"Group: On-Line assistant

[I]"Second attempt to contact you.

When I use your Adjustment Program for my R3000 I get the error message Error Code: 20000010. So I am unable to do a nozzle check, a head clean or an ink charge. This occurs when an external waste ink bottle is added."[/I]

and this,

"[I]Group: On-Line assistant

When I use the Adjustment Program for the R3000, with a waste ink bottle attached, I cannot get past the error message, Error Code: 20000010. So I cannot do a nozzle check, a head clean or an ink charge. The ink charge is why I paid $12 for the manual and $20 for the Adjustment Program. Can you help?"
[/I]

Their answer was to send my message back to me as an acknowledgement of receipt, nothing more.

Harry

[QUOTE=Dana-IJM;2393]So, I wrote to 2manuals support yesterday afternoon, and received a response this morning:
[I]
Hello!
Thank you for contacting 2Manuals.com.
I apologize for any inconvenience caused by my delayed response and I’ll be happy to assist you.

1. No one request, no one email from our customers we leave without reply. That is 100%.
   Why some customers doesnt receive our emails??? There are a lot of web services which can block emails detecting them like spam. They can post question at our forum.

2. About R3000 AP - this is most NOT PROBLEM model. We have no problems with it AP. Can you give me their questions?

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Kind regards, John
www.2manuals.com[/I]

I think this is good and quick customer support, so am curious if their replies were directed to your spam folder as he suggested, or what happened…? English is apparently not his primary language, but I’m sure he’s very knowledgeable/helpful, so please be sure to contact 2Manuals for help you may need in the future with the AP or manuals you get from them.

All the best~ Dana :)[/QUOTE]

[DanaC]

Thanks Harry~ This is getting a bit off track, but I would like to have confidence that a company we direct our customers to for help are well taken care of. I forwarded your message to John at 2Manuals yesterday, and haven’t heard back yet… I’ll let you know if/when I do.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana

[losttribe]

[QUOTE=Dana-IJM;2405]Thanks Harry~ This is getting a bit off track, but I would like to have confidence that a company we direct our customers to for help are well taken care of. I forwarded your message to John at 2Manuals yesterday, and haven’t heard back yet… I’ll let you know if/when I do.

Best regards and happy printing~ Dana :)[/QUOTE]

Hi Harry and Dana.

Well here I am again spending some time seeing if I can get my printer running. I tried to go through the previous posts in this thread. Harry, sorry I never got back to you when you offered to correspond privately regarding all this. I got so frustrated about it all I had to walk away from it and get on with other things. I really appreciated your offer, and of course I’d love to get in touch.

However I think I’d be wasting your time. I have once again gone through attempting to set up the printer under windows running on Parallels. The printer is recognised fine under Mac OS and I have the full Epson software set up and driver running. The printer prints fine from Mac OS. So then I go to set up the windows driver from Windows/Parallels. I downloaded the latest driver package from Epson and ran the install package (My printer came with a mac os driver disk). It seems to go fine until it gets to the point of looking for the printer. No matter what I do it cannot seem to detect the printer. I thought the issue might be the USB hub so I plugged the computer directly into the printer with no other devices connected. Just the computer and the printer. I tried several different USB cables. No luck. So that seems to be the brick wall I can’t get past.

The insane thing about all of this is that when I’m running windows under parallels, windows can see that the R3000 is there but seems to have assigned the wrong driver to it during the parallels/windows install. I’ll have a look but If I remember correctly it has assigned the driver for an HP laser printer. If I don’t try changing this then I seem to be able to get it to print a windows printer test page. But if I tell it to use the correct driver i.e. for the R3000 and then try to print something it returns a message along the lines that the printer doesn’t match the driver and will not let me proceed. So then I try deleting the printers and doing a fresh printer install by running the Epson driver/software install package at which point i’m dead in the water when it gets to the point of failing to detect the printer again. Bizarrely it seems to complete the driver/software install but can’t see the printer.

I haven’t contacted tech support for parallels yet. I suppose I have several choices. Contact Parellels tech support or buy a cheap PC. I think what’s so confusing about all this is that when I read the documentation for Parallels it seems to suggest that Parallels seamlessly shares the printers with Mac OS but i would not describe this as very ‘seamless’ so far…

I guess I’m just baffled by how everyone else using Windows under Parallels seems to have had no trouble but for me it just will not detect the printer and facilitate the driver install. If either of you or anyone else has any thoughts on this they’d be welcome

Dana, I forgot to say regarding the support from the supplier of the adjustment program. They were no use at all. They did respond but only to say that ‘The Adjustment program has no problems with the R3000’ and works great. There was no sense that they had any interest in offering any help. Mind you I suppose it’s fair to say the problem appears to be with Parallels / Windows not letting me correctly set up the printer.

Any thoughts you may have are welcome. I hope you are both well and enjoying printing.

Best Wishes,
Neil.

[jon]

The obvious? Did you install the Epson Windows printer driver and utility for the R3000? Can you print to it from Windows? If you can you should be able to use the Adjustment Utility. If you can not or can not see the printer with the Epson Status Monitor…or run a normal nozzle check - then you can not use the Service Utility. If you did not install the driver for the printer - you should. If you did and it functions normally like an Epson printer and you can print to it, etc… Reinstall the Service Utility…

[losttribe]

Hi Jon,

To confirm. Yes and No It’s the driver install under windows that seems to be giving the problem as far as I can see. The install of the driver and status monitor seems to start well enough. Then the window pops up saying 'connect the printer to the computer with a USB cable. I connect the printer directly with nothing else connected to the computer and it just sits there waiting for me to plug it in. It fails to detect that I have done so. Then ultimately the driver and status monitor install finishes and I see a message informing me that it was installed but the printer was not found. Then when I try to query the printer via status monitor it will not show me the ink levels etc and I can’t print a nozzle check.

So I figure that due to the printer not being detected during software install the service program subsequently cannot see it and I figure that’s why I get the ‘communication error’

The infuriating part is that looking down at the bottom right of the screen in windows I can see windows telling me there is an epson R3000 connected.

Neil.